Teenage marathon phenom Alana Hadley knows what she likes. She fell in love with running when she was just 3, ran her first race at 6, won the Indianapolis Marathon at 17 (in a course record time of 2:38:34) and has already qualified for the US Olympic Marathon Trials at 18. She also loves her mother's lasagna.
Conveniently, the dish also happens to be her primary prerace fuel, so when she competes in her first New York City Marathon on November 1 -- as the youngest professional in the elite field -- the 5-foot-5 college freshman at UNC-Charlotte will be counting on those noodles to help her stay as close as possible to the Kenyan and Ethiopian mega-stars all the way to the finish in Central Park.
When: I eat this during marathon training and always eat it the night before a race.
Place: I eat it either at home or at an Italian restaurant, depending on where the race is.
What I'm eating: Lasagna!
Whose recipe? My mom's. She is the best cook and nothing is better than her lasagna.
Why I'm eating it: It is a tradition that got started when I was little. My mom would make lasagna for the family for special occasions and she started doing it the night before races since it is my favorite thing to eat. Now the tradition has stuck.
The recipe:
Layer each of the following in this order: cooked noodles, ricotta cheese, ground beef and spaghetti sauce. Then sprinkle Italian seasonings and layer it all again, with an extra layer of noodles and sauce at the end. Add mozzarella cheese to the top and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.